A portrait of Huguette Clark in her wedding gown at Bellosguardo in Santa Barbara, with a portrait of her father by Tadé Styka, her painting instructor.

A portrait of Huguette Clark in her wedding gown at Bellosguardo in Santa Barbara, with a portrait of her father by Tadé Styka, her painting instructor.

Huguette's wedding photo in the newspapers.

Bill and Huguette Gower with the wedding party at Bellosguardo, 1928.

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Huguette's husband, William "Bill" MacDonald Levenson Gower, at the time of his graduation from Princeton at age 20, one of the youngest members of the class of 1925. 

Huguette Clark in 1928 soon after her wedding.

Detail of the 1928 photo of Huguette Clark soon after her wedding.

Newlyweds: William and Huguette Gower soon after their wedding, 1928.

Newspapers around the world carried speculation about the causes of the divorce.

Los Angeles Times

There were newspaper accounts in 1931, apparently false, that Huguette was ready to wed an Irish nobleman named Edward FitzGerald, the Seventh Duke of Leinster. The duke, a compulsive gambler and ne'er-do-well, later admitted in court that he was bankrupt when he came to America "with the idea of marrying someone rich." He died by suicide, penniless.

The home of Bill Gower, Huguette Clark's ex-husband, in France. Surprisingly, Huguette and Bill kept up an affectionate correspondence. After his second wife died, he retired in 1960 to the coastal resort town of Antibes on the French Riviera. He owned a classic, antique-stuffed Mediterranean house, which he called La Sarrazine. His yard had a huge mirror at one end to make the estate look twice as large. He died in 1976.

The grave of William Gower outside Lake Placid, New York.

Bill Gower's grave, foreground, with the headstone of his parents, outside Lake Placid, N.Y.